In the first wheel of the seasons in my new home, I strived to maintain a facade of normalcy while fortifying myself for the what i knew the shortened future would hold for me.
Lavender and daylilies found homes along the walkways, a final act of gardening before my hands would fail me. Inside, I transformed the cottage into a sanctuary, anticipating the day it would become my entire world. Tall chairs with sturdy arms appeared – easy escape and strong supports for faltering limbs. Hand-cranked, height-adjustable furniture emerged – steampunk anachronisms that seemed to match the look of the ancient cottage with its exposed walnut ceiling beams. Antique wooden orchard boxes and old-timey radios camouflaged home automation systems, allowing doors to open, lights to turn on, music to play, and temperature to set using only voice or phone – a subconscious bridge between past and uncertain future.
My physical strength was already a shadow of what it had been even 12 months prior. An orthotic ankle brace reduced the number of falls, but the fact remained: I was stronger than I would ever be again. So, I committed to doing the most good with my remaining strength until it was gone.
Making Memories with my Son
A classic teardrop trailer became our passport to adventure. At first, we stole away on weekends, finding refuge in nearby campgrounds. The cramped quarters of our mobile cocoon only amplified our laughter, the endless backgammon games, and the comfort of knowing my son was an arm’s reach away as crickets sang us to sleep.
As summer’s warmth deepened, the road called. We set out from our valley home, the little trailer obediently following. Crossing the George Washington Bridge, the city’s glass and steel gave way to rolling hills, then to salt-tinged air as we neared Cape Cod. For two sun-drenched weeks, that teardrop became our home base, parked in the shadow of my childhood home . My son explored the same beaches where I had once built sandcastles, his joy a mirror of my own long-ago summers.
Fall found us southbound, the trailer kicking up golden leaves as we wound our way from Bucks County to the wild beauty of North Carolina’s Outer Banks. The ocean’s roar lulled us to sleep, and dawn painted the dunes in soft pastels as we sipped hot cocoa, huddled in blankets against the morning chill.
But it was on the water where time seemed to stand still. I’d been taking my boy fishing since he was barely tall enough to peer over the boat’s gunwale. Now, as summer unfurled, we chased the tides and seasons. In spring, we battled Delaware River striped bass, their silver sides flashing in the sun as my son’s face beamed with pride at each catch. Summer brought us fluke and bluefish, the boat rocking gently as we baited hooks and shared stories.
On Cape Cod, we sought stripers again, this time in the familiar waters of my youth. I watched my son’s hands, still small but growing surer, as he worked the rod and reel. His determined frown mirrored the one I’d worn decades ago, standing beside my own father.
Those days of sun-warmed metal, salted air, and shared silence on dawn-quiet waters etched themselves into my heart. In the gentle rocking of the boat, in my son’s laughter echoing across the waves, in the quiet pride of watching him grow in skill and confidence – I found a timeless joy.
Building a Business
In a twist of fate that felt like either cosmic irony or divine grace, the business we birthed during the pandemic’s uncertainty blossomed with astounding vigor. I poured myself into the work, finding purpose in the challenge and solace in the company of the remarkable individuals drawn to our vision. Our shared dedication bore fruit beyond our wildest dreams.
We had created something extraordinary: a bridge between Wall Street’s vast resources and Main Street’s overlooked potential. Our company became an alchemist of sorts, transforming the cold math of high finance into tangible improvements in communities across the nation. We took rental homes – often neglected by overwhelmed small-scale landlords – and breathed new life into them.
To capture the interest of behemoth investors like pension funds, we built a network of local expertise. Hundreds of independent real estate professionals became our eyes, ears, and hands in communities nationwide. They negotiated deals, oversaw renovations, and managed properties with a level of care that only locals can provide. This wasn’t just business; it was revitalization on a grand scale.
The ripples of our work spread far and wide. Wall Street’s millions flowed directly into the pockets of small business owners, igniting local economies and creating thousands of new jobs. Families found themselves in homes that were not just four walls and a roof, but safe havens, well-maintained and thoughtfully managed. Investors saw their returns grow, completing a virtuous cycle where everyone – from the biggest fund to the smallest tenant – came out ahead.
As our success grew, so did our reputation. When the time came to open our doors to new investors to fuel further expansion, we found ourselves in rarefied air. The company’s valuation hit the magical unicorn mark: one billion dollars.
But for me, the true value of this success lay not in the digits on a financial statement, but in the security it could provide for those I loved most. With the support of my partner and investors, who already knew the truth of my diagnosis, and with clumsy hands – weaker now, but still able to sign the necessary papers – I cashed out a portion of my equity.
My older daughter’s college debt, a weight I had long wished to lift from her shoulders, vanished with the stroke of a pen. For my son, I created a fund to ensure that his path to education would be unencumbered by financial worry. My younger daughter, with her special challenges, would have the resources she needed to navigate the world long after I could no longer guide her steps.
The remaining equity stayed with the company, a seed that might one day grow into substantial wealth for my children. But more importantly, I now had the means to be there for them in the ways that truly mattered – helping with life’s essentials, smoothing the rough patches, offering a safety net woven from a father’s enduring love.
Exploring the Territory
Of all my efforts that first year, the true work lay in armoring the mind against a relentless foe: a rare, terminal disease promising lucidity amidst creeping paralysis, with suffocation as its final act. No treatment. No horizon of hope. Only the certainty of decline.
Alone for the first time, save for precious nights with my children, I embarked on a desperate pilgrimage through human wisdom. At my kitchen table, as if packing a survival kit for the soul, I devoured the thoughts of ages in mountains of books. The Bible’s poetry and parables. Sutras humming with cosmic insight. Stoic resilience from Epictetus, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius. Rumi’s ecstatic unity. Basho’s crystalline moments. The intellectual labyrinths of Kant and Schopenhauer’s explorations of human cognition. Deleuze’s dynamic vision of being. Rilke’s intimate cosmos. The zen of Suzuki, Watts, Thich Nhat Hanh, and Harada.
These were my companions and guides on dark winter nights. Sitting at my dinner table, we would whisper across the centuries, conspiring as they always have, to set a course across the frontier between living and dying.
Yet books alone couldn’t suffice. Nature, ever-present beyond my windows, became my most patient teacher. I watched, I listened, I learned. Dawn erupted in birdsong. Dusk ushered in the silent ballet of bats. A small deer herd traced their clockwise path, day after day. A woodchuck family, my neighbors in the blackberry thicket, went about their homely routines. Fawns tottered into spring. Autumn skies filled with rivers of migrating wings.
Magic, undeniable and unceasing, surrounded me. In this valley’s rhythms – birth, growth, decay, rebirth – I found not an escape from my fate, but a profound belonging within it.
One Response
Although frightening, facing the inevitable death provides an opportunity to say goodbye to loved ones.
Just as a dying person must find peace, a family must also find their own peace in the face of the unknown. If they can be helped financially, even better.